


Arrivederci

by waterlit



Category: D.Gray-man
Genre: Angst, F/M, Introspection, Romance, old fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-02
Updated: 2017-04-02
Packaged: 2018-10-07 07:54:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10355685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/waterlit/pseuds/waterlit
Summary: Long ago, he vanished into the empty sky.





	

**I. Vanish**

(her coat flapped in the wind, calling out for the translucent hands of the dead)

Lenalee knelt and cast her bereaved gaze skyward. White flowers (of water melted and then pieced together) were blooming in the sky; little snow-kisses fell haltingly from the heavens. Lenalee stretched her hands out, lips twisting into a mild smile as a single white crystal dropped into her warm palms.

A stiff wind caught her hair, lifting dark strands towards the skies. _Allen, can you see me now, with the wind about me?  
_

She kissed the crystal. The warm breath diluted the starry gem into a pool of liquid. _  
_

(her eyes watered the ground with pearls; she missed the dead)

He left when winter limped into the world. The year he left, winter appeared suddenly without warning. The exorcists had all gone to bed happy, and she had watched the red leaves fall from the crooked branches, cupping the dimpled face of the whittled moon.

Then she woke, with a dark chill hanging about her, the moon leering at her with hollow sickle eyes from the curve of her window. Her heart almost froze over.

_But they are all safe here…_

It was morning, when he left, suitcase at the ready. She met him at the entrance (and the exit). Komui waved him off with a sad smile and a large yawn. But she—she flew at him and clutched at him, tears flying. He was warm, under his coat.

"Don't leave," she had said, fingertips pressing into the arms of his coat.

"I must go, Lenalee. You know that."

"Don't leave. I don't want my family to break up."

"Don't cry." A warm hand brushed across her face, ghosting her cheeks.

"Allen..."

"I will be back, I promise." His white hair glinted strangely in the weak winter sunlight. "Till then, Lenalee."

A final goodbye, and then Allen left with a team of Finders.

Alone, her tears fell, glimmering slightly in the winter sunlight.

The sky was empty. She glanced up, wonderingly; the shadow of the sun flitted gently above, but nothing else danced on the deep blue of the sky; nothing darkened the fresh green of the gardens. And so Lenalee took it as a good sign.

* * *

**II. Empty Skies**

But the sky was empty, all the same.

(her fingers writhed; the puddle in her hand fell to the floor, splashing, splashing…)

He never came back. Rumours came and went, but they remained just that. This finder claimed he saw Allen somewhere in Siberia, fettered with skeletal chains of despair and hatred; that one said he saw a clown hanging from a tree, with a pentacle scar like Allen's, along the borders of Russia. This one insisted that a grey-faced monster with Allen's face walked the lonely moors in search of humans to devour. That one cried and cried and hugged Lenalee with all her might, all the while sobbing, _you poor, poor child._

Whenever she was back at the headquarters, she would always be at the gate waiting to greet her returning comrades. Each return sewed close the gaps left by those who left, but Allen lengthy disappearance kept her worried.

Each night she flipped over in bed, dissecting the cold with her tired eyes, but sleep refused to claim her. Dark thoughts, miserable thoughts, and unhappy thoughts—they staked her mind with sharp-teeth claws and tilled her heart with misery. Tears found their way into her hapless eyes, and silent screams echoed in her ears.

Nightmares, dark lullabies of the night, wove their unseeing way into her hair and kept her close.

Then the news came.

The war was over, the relentless war was over, over, over, over… the exorcists were free. The news came suddenly, without warning. It hurt, and she cried amid the tears of joy. Her Allen was dead to her by the hand of fate. Never again would he walk into the dark hallways of the Order, a bright smile on his face and laughter in his eyes.

 _"_ He's not coming back, Lenalee," Lavi said as he tried to hold back his own sobs.

 _He's not?_ She could not quite bring herself to believe that; she became increasingly hysterical. _He's not?_

 _._ "The Beansprout's dead." It was Kanda, words sharp and bitter, like ash falling from the thin line of his mouth.

"I can't accept that! He wouldn't—he promised!"

Kanda twisted Mugen in its sheath. "If someone's dead, he stays dead."

Lavi drew Lenalee into a hug. "Allen wouldn't have wanted you to mope. Keep walking on, like he did. I will. And you should too _._ "

(her nose twitched; her fears and sorrow were knotting themselves back into her hair)

_Keep on walking… to where? When do I stop walking, Allen?_

_Never,_ the wind breathed. _Never. Walk on._

* * *

**III. In This World**

She reached out again, gloved fingers caressing the soft hide of the wind. A decade—ten years of lost love and sorrow—had separated them. There she was again, kneeling among the wilted flowers and withered trees in the garden within the Black Order Headquarters. It was deserted now, and no one lived here but the fleeting echoes of their past, creeping past her with their tiny ghost-feet.

It was here that she'd wept her grief away when the news came that the Earl was defeated and Allen was dead.

"Brother," she had asked, "are you sure his body is gone?"

Komui's face had been scrubbed clean of emotion and stubble. "We couldn't find him… I'm sorry, Lenalee."

She had hugged her knees to her chest when Komui walked away back to the castle, gait heavy and beret in his hands. The sun bled orange and red around the far horizon.

"He'll come back in some form, you know."

Lenalee looked up. Link was there, squatting and pulling at the sleeping flowers.

"He will?" she had said. 

"Hold on to his memory." Link stood up. "Good luck and farewell."

"You were there, won't you?"

Link stopped.

"You were there when Allen… fought the Earl."

"Yes."

"Tell me what happened."

Link hesitated. "Remember him as he was before his struggles with the Earl and the Fourteenth." _  
_

(her eyes itched with the memories of tears)

She was proud of Allen. But she missed him dearly too. Despite what Link had said, Allen never appeared to her again. He didn't emerge from the shadows of sleep, he didn't walk out of mirrors… he'd left her high and dry. She wrung out her tears in solitude.

On his death anniversary she always came here, to the place where they'd shared so many happy, if brief, memories. She looked around. There was not a single trace of him around, as usual. _Why did you vanish into the empty sky?_

_You know, Allen, even the snow falls in this world. Are you the snow, then?_

Another tiny snowflake drifted into her outstretched hand. _But I believe Link. We will meet again some day, even if some day is around the bend for me._

_We will meet again in this world, my fragile Allen._

* * *

Why did you vanish

Into empty sky?

Even the fragile snow,

when it falls,

falls in this world.

(Izumi Shikibu, translated into the English by Jane Hirshfield, The Ink Dark Moon)

**Author's Note:**

> First posted on FFN in May 2010. Slightly edited. Also, there are some tense errors—I may come back to fix them at some later date.


End file.
